U.S. Says More Iraqi Police Are Needed as Attacks Continue (WP)

[cthrumatrix]

U.S. Says More Iraqi Police Are Needed as Attacks Continue

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2004; Page A23

At a time when Iraqi insurgents are targeting local police officers and recruits for attack, the United States has raised by one-third -- to 135,000 -- the size of the Iraqi police force it says will be needed to help secure the country, according to information the administration has provided to Congress.

The challenges to the United States in training and deploying that many officers are considerable, officials acknowledge. Currently, about 82,051 Iraqi police officers are on the payroll, but only 32,880 have received training under U.S. guidance, according to figures provided by Capt. Steven Alvarez, an Army officer working with the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Of that number, Congress was told last week that only 8,200 had received the eight-week training; the rest got a more basic course for three weeks or less.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage described the latter group as "shake and bake" trainees, saying in congressional testimony last week that they were mostly former police officers under Saddam Hussein's government being trained "primarily in human rights, respect for law, things of that nature."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55070-2004Sep27.html

Key words above...ONLY 32,000 have received training under US guidance.....thsi weekend they were sharing 100,000 trained

[2Design]

1. they keep getting killed - why would they want to join

[Richardo]

2. "Car 54, Where Are You?"

:eyes:

[ugarte]

3. Just deputize every Iraqi

Give each Iraqi a badge and a gun, then get the hell out.

[gratuitous]

4. And of those 32,000 who have received "training"

Not one of them has made it all the way through the full course of training. Bush lied yesterday when he said that nearly 100,000 Iraqis had been "fully trained" and someone who knew better had to issue another one of those clarifications that by "fully trained" Bush meant they had been given their initial orientation. Sounded to me like he was saying that those guys had basically been told which end of the gun the bullet comes out, and not much more.

[madrchsod]

5. i may have just woke up

and my brain is still fuzzy but..DIDN`T THE IRAQI`S HAVE A POLICE FORCE BEFORE THE WAR? ah that woke me up.......

[shrike]

6. Iraqi police training is a joke

The friend of a friend just got back from Baghdad after terminating his contract to train Iraqis as police officers. The men they were supposed to be training rioted and the civilians had to hunker down in a hotel.

[leftchick]

7. some were putting on a uniform after 24HOURS of "training"!!

and counted in that 32,000 figure! I saw some of the hearing on this issue. They are fudging the numbers anyway they can. The NYC congress woman who was laying out the real facts and bogus numbers was furious!