Bush Lied in the Debate about Iraqi Force Numbers

[Killarney]

Shocking, I know.

Bush said, "There's 100,000 troops trained: police, guard, special units, border patrol. There's going to be 125,000 trained by the end of this year."

Ah, no.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=590914

But many of these assertions have met with scepticism from key lawmakers, congressional aides and experts, and Pentagon documents, given to lawmakers and obtained by Reuters, paint a more complicated picture. The documents show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as "untrained," and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its new goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.

They estimated that 22,700 Iraqi personnel have received enough basic training to make them "minimally effective at their tasks," in contrast to the 100,000 figure cited by Bush.