Shocker: Bush Fibs (Iraqi forces edition)

"Iraqi security forces are taking increasing responsibility for their country's security. Nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers, and other security personnel are working today. And that total will rise to 125,000 by the end of this year." - President Bush, during his garden-side chat with the press Thursday.

From Reuter's yesterday:

"Documents obtained by Reuters show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. And it will be July 2006 before the administration's new goal of 135,000 fully trained police is met."

Of course, there are other Iraqi forces besides police, such as the army. Their training is going swimingly. From today's Washington Post:

Instead of fielding 12,000 soldiers by June, as the U.S. occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer, had promised a year earlier, there were about 4,000 soldiers. There are currently about 6,000 in the field.

Comments

[meanwhile]

haven't 100,000 police officers here in the states--previously funded via that 90s anti-crime legislation--lost their jobs?

Due, in large part to local and state budget crunches, high alert overtime expenditures (and likely in Bush's eyes only: those damn unions!)

USA! usa! usa....aw fuggitaboutit!

[A Janes]

I thought that some of the funniest moments in the debate were when Bush continually name dropped all the foreign leaders. It seemed to me to be a carry over from his debate with Al Gore when he couldn't name any foreign leaders. It appeared to me that he was still trying to prove that he knew something about foreign countries. Perhaps for an encore, in the next debate he could name the President/Prime Minister and the country's capital too.