Reuters: Key Bush Assertions About Iraq in Dispute

President Bush as part of his optimistic Iraq pitch last week said that nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel are on the job. According to the president, that number will rise to 125,000 by the end of 2004.

The fact is that only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training according to Pentagon documents.

Either the President was given bad information once again, or he just lied unapologetically about this. With only about 8000 Iraqis fully trained, how can we expect the security situation to improve any time soon? The Reuters article also points out that it will be July 2006 before there can be 135,000 fully trained police in Iraq.