-- Ensuring that they will act as national forces, and not Shi'ite and Kurdish forces,

-- Giving Iraqi combat battalions better balance and support,

-- Giving the security and police forces the same level of training and advisory support as the regular Iraqi forces,

-- Matching force development with political development and inclusiveness, and

-- Supporting Iraqi forces with effective governance by civil authorities.

Regular Iraqi military forces still lack balance. They are still lightly equipped, and an initial emphasis on putting as many combat units into the field as possible, means they lack adequate headquarters, support, and logistic units. As a result, major further improvements are still needed in the regular forces that will take well into 2007, and require sustained U.S. advisory efforts, aid, and military support -- both as operators and as trainers/advisors for at least several years after 2007.

As for the political dimension, most top Iraqi officials, and senior Iraqi Arab Shi'ite and Kurdish political leaders, continue to stress the importance of developing Iraqi forces that maintain a rule of law, and respect for human rights in spite of the insurgent attacks. They stress the need to fight corruption, and change the past culture of Iraq's military and police forces to stress professionalism and promotion by merit.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of the Interior failed to act effectively to implement such goals and allowed some elements of its special security units to act as a virtual extension of Shi'ite efforts to attack the Sunnis. While he has since taken some corrective steps, major new efforts have had to be undertaken to reform the forces of the Ministry of the Interior and both the special security services and police. Such efforts are only beginning to have an impact, although the Ministry of Interior has fired the commanders responsible for the worst abuses.

More broadly, the police still cannot act as an effective force in many areas of the country, and have many elements that lacked both competence and loyalty to the central government. These problems were compounded in Sunni areas by the difficulty of finding forces loyal to the national government. They were compounded in Shi'ite areas by loyalty to Shi'ite religious parties and intimidation by -- or partnership with -- Shi'ite militias. Many of the police were also local, and lacked the training and discipline of the police units trained and equipped by the Coalition and central government.

Both Iraqi forces and civil government are still far too slow to occupy the areas where the insurgents were defeated by the military and security forces. This lack of governance and the ability to establish security without military forces remained a major problem in many parts of the country, but made it difficult to exploit Iraqi and Coalition military victories in areas favorable to the Sunni insurgents.

The war in Iraq also remains all too real. Multi-National Force-I intelligence estimates that the number of insurgent attacks on coalition forces, Iraqi forces, and Iraqi civilians; and acts of sabotage; rose by 29% in 2005. The total rose from 26,496 in 2004 to 34,131 in 2005. These attacks have had a relatively consistent average success rate of 24 percent (attacks that cause damage or casualties.)

At the same time, there has been a shift to attacks on Iraqis, rather than Coalition troops. A total of 673 U.S. troops were killed in 2005, versus 714 in 2004, and the number of wounded dropped from 7,990 to 5,639, a drop of 29 percent. U.S. forces saw fewer casualties largely because more Iraqi forces were in the field and there were no major urban battles like the battle of Fallujah, and also because the insurgents shifted to Iraqi targets that were more vulnerable and had far more political impact at a point where it have become clear that the United States and its coalition partners wanted to withdraw many of their forces.

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair of Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. This article is extracted from the executive summary to his February study on Iraqi force development and is reprinted with permission. United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.

Related Links
-