As they stand up, we can stand down.
I have doubts about the real number who would actually show up because our own pentagon says their absentee and desertion rate is somewhere between 35 and 50+% depending on the area and unit. Still, sounds like good news.

One bone of contention: You are better served to show a news report or official report than the thoughts of another right oriented blog. Also, Kagan, the historian they quote, does not have the reputation as a non-partisan or in any way objective observer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Kagan

Here's a clip from the Stars and Stripes :
"As of February 2007, the Pentagon said it had trained and equipped more than 327,000 Iraqi forces, more than doubling the total from March 2005."

"One problem, though, is that accurate records are not kept."

“The Ministry of Interior does not maintain standardized reports on personnel strength,” the report found. “As a result, DOD does not know how many coalition-trained police the ministry still employs or what percentage of the 180,000 police thought to be on the payroll are coalition trained and equipped.”
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=44350&archive=true

carsick: One bone of contention: You are better served to show a news report or official report than the thoughts of another right oriented blog.

I'd agree with that. And in that spirit, I suggest you read (or watch, or listen to) Petraeus'
recent interview with Jim Lehrer. I also agree that to call Fred Kagan a Bush critic is a bit of a stretch. While it may be technically true (he has long argued for more troops in Iraq), he is also one of the primary sources for the current "surge" plan. Finally, I also agree that a lot of the 327,000 security forces Mark mentions exist more on paper than in fact at any given point in time. The real number is probably only half that. But things are improving in that regard. And also the new embedding strategy appears to be quite a bit more effective than the past strategy.

One of these days it would be nice to try to put the partisan bickering aside and have a substantive discussion about the situation in Iraq. Mark claims in his post that "The standard meme is that the Iraqis are letting us carry the load." And that's partially true -- both the meme and the fact. Likewise, another standard meme is that the war emergency appropriations bills recently passed in the House and Senate (google "Iraq Accountability Act of 2007" if you want to read it) are nothing more than prescriptions for defeat. And perhaps that's partially true as well. But it is not so cut and dried as the meme implies: as I read them, troop withdrawals are required only if the Iraqis' fail to comply with various political and economic benchmarks that they agreed to with the Bush administration. Personally, I think they're too stringent. But I think that's the right idea. Something has to get those guys to poop or get off the pot.

the Iraqi army is "now larger than the standing armies of France and Great Britain Posted by Mark Noonan at April 6, 2007 09:49 AM

Let me see if I have this correct, before the Iraq war they had an incompetent army that could be destroyed in a matter of weeks and had no ties to al-Qaeda according to a just released Defense Department report. We have now given a people, many who hate the Western infidels, an American trained army larger than Great Britain.

Thank you Mr. Bush may I have another! Neocons are such boobs!!

Something has to get those guys to poop or get off the pot.

Posted by: Ricorun at April 6, 2007 11:32 AM

LOL! I agree. I'm completely in favor of setting tough benchmarks for the Iraqis. I want us to leave Iraq, but I do not want to leave an Iraq unable to maintain it's own security. We removed Saddam and ruined their previous government (I agreed with that move) I think the least we can do is help stand them back up.

Ricorun,
I was responding to the news and not Mark Noonan's ridiculous commentary on it.
If I were to do that. I wouldn't be so nice about it.

I could point out, for instance, that the DoD is not providing Congress with their assessment reports of troop readiness (from the same Stars and Stripes report):
“While DOD captures this information in its Transition Readiness Assessments, it does not provide this critical information to Congress,” the report read. “These data provide information on capabilities and gaps in Iraqi units’ manpower, equipment and training levels. … Congress needs this information to make informed appropriations decisions and engage in meaningful oversight. Despite repeated attempts over many months, we have yet to be provided the TRA information we are seeking.”

Or the fact that the Iraqis are being utilized as foot soldiers only - so their numbers of dead are likely to be higher than ours considering their only job is to be on the front lines:

"Perhaps more importantly, the report found, “Iraqi units remain dependent upon the coalition for their logistical, command and control and intelligence capabilities.”

“The coalition,” the report reads, is providing “fuel, uniforms, building supplies, ammunition, vehicle maintenance and spare parts, and medical supplies.”

Or that the "terrorists" in Iraq (if we consider al Quada the terrorists) only make up a small portion of our troubles there. The Iraq Study Group and the Pentagon believe their numbers only equal about 1300 to 2100. The bigger trouble is Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias and deathsquads. In other words, sectarian and nationalistic forces, not terrorists in the traditional sense used by our own government.

I could go on...

OK, so Iraq has a huge army, bigger than Britain and France...

So can we get our troops out of Iraq now and get back to, you know, defending our country from real threats and fighting the people who actually attacked us on 9/11?

" ... defending our country from real threats "

Aaron,
I think there's a Constitutional problem with using the military to seek out and destroy democrats. But, thanks for the suggestion.

Dasein -

Were it that Mr Bush spent half as much time and effort fighting al-qaeda as he does villifying democrats.

Aaron,
Were it that democrats (or is it democratics) spent more time acting like Americans, and less siding with our enemies. Villainous is as villainous does.

Dasein Libsbane,
Sad that you hate your fellow Americans as much if not more than al-qaeda.

Why are the Republicans so shrill and angry? If they could see through their rage....

Oh wait, that's what folks here are always saying about Democrats. I had the wrong script.

carsick, If you're trying to be clever ... it's not working for you.

I wasn't aware you had a sense of humor rathaven.

Would you like to discuss Gingrich's trips as a legislator to China and Israel where he intentionally defied the Executive branch instead.

Tell ya what, why don't you come join us here in 2007, or do you just want to play "it's all Clinton's fault"?

So can anyone explain why, if the Iraqi army is doing so well, we are expanding our forces instead of drawing them down?

Yep, no sense of humor.

Mark seems so happy we created this mighty Iraqi army. Where the Republicans disappointed in the Iraqi army the first two times we destroyed them? Will neocons be happy now that with superior training the Iraqi army will be more of a challenge should there be a third time?

No wonder Neocons are at 30% and sinking; lunacy just pure lunacy.

Casper,

May I suggest you read the Iraqi Survey Group report which called for increased US forces to imbed themselves with Iraqi forces, and put forth a concentrated effort to reduce the violence that is necessary to give diplomatic efforts 'breathing room".

Dilopmatic efforts under the a SUmmary Group of countries, where the US would also talk directly to Syria and Iraq.

Or do you just take the misinformation from blogs, news that don't fully mnetion what the ISG report states.

Or go by Democrats who go directly what was recommended bu trying to establish a timeframe for withdrawl.

We all know that fot the anti-war people, Democrats and GOP... it's all politics as usual and misinformation is always the tool of choice.

Read the report before making comments

DougH
As a matter of fact, I have a copy of The Iraq Study Group Report. However it is my understanding that the Bush Administration has rejected the report, especially the part about using diplomatic efforts.

So why do hundreds of thousand of Iraqis need over a hundred thousand American troops to help them fight a few thousand ragged terrorists?

Geesh, you liberals just refuse to even try to see it, don't you? Well, Ricorun makes a pretty good stab at it...but the rest of you might as well be on Mars.

I didn't even imply that the Iraqi forces are up to par with US forces...but they have lost 6,400 dead, and hundreds of thousands have, indeed, volunteered...they are fighting, and they are risking their lives for liberty. What I really want to know is why you on the left simply refuse to even see these Iraqis?

And as for numbers - you need massively more troops than there are enemies to fight this sort of war...a few thousand terrorists can wander around attacking targets of opportunity...the people fighting the terrorists have to be everywhere at once, and that takes a lot of manpower. On an average day, hardly any of the Coalition forces in Iraq actually see battle.

From iraqthemodel blogspot ...

In the west, particularly in Anbar, the Anbar Awakening Council announced the capture of what appears to be an intelligence treasure. This is what sheik Hameed al-Hayis, a member of the Council told al-Sabah yesterday:

We captured so many of their document and these contain the names of al-Qaeda groups in the province, the letters that were exchanged among those groups, the surveillance reports they were filing to their Emirs about civilian people of Ramadi like clerics and college students as well as details of trials [and executions] to which innocents were subjected.

The al-Qaeda terrorists in Anbar continue their campaign to terrorize the population that is turning against them. This morning another attack with a chlorine gas bomb struck western Ramadi killing and injuring dozens of civilians and policemen.

No wonder al-Qaeda is sending more of their suicide bombers to murder the people of Anbar; a friend of mine who visited the area just two days ago said he saw a crowd of young men near an ISF recruiting center that was "larger than anything else I had seen in Baghdad".

Keep it up, Iraq, and fight for freedom. It's worth it.

"As a matter of fact, I have a copy of The Iraq Study Group Report. However it is my understanding that the Bush Administration has rejected the report, especially the part about using diplomatic efforts."

Yes. The Bushies were right to reject the report: They've always been so right in Iraq so far.
And the vast majority of Americans and military analysts definitely think the Iraq study group's report is a bad idea.

Only....NOT!