By Aram Roston, NBC News Producer
The Pentagon's Iraqi goal posts have apparently moved again. According to a federal report released today, the Pentagon has decided that Iraq needs a security force of up to 646,000 Iraqi troops to successfully battle the insurgency. That seems to be a dramatically larger number than previous estimates. In September 2007, the Pentagon estimated Iraq needed only 390,000 troops. And then as recently as March 2008, the Pentagon said only 580,000 Iraqi troops were needed. (U.S. policy has been to train Iraqi troops to fight the insurgency, so that American forces can ultimately leave.)
But no one even knows how many fighting troops there really are in the Iraqi force structure, the new report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said. That's because dead and injured and AWOL Iraqi soldiers are often kept on the job rolls. The Iraqi government, according to the auditors, keeps the dead on the pay rolls so that their families can continue to receive funds.
So "there is no data on how many of the personnel trained are still actively serving in the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces)," the IG report said.
Although the U.S. government frequently cites facts and figures about how many Iraqi troops are trained to take charge in the battle against the insurgency, federal auditors found a cloud of confusion. "There are continuing uncertainties about the true number of assigned and trained Iraqi personnel," the report said.
Example: The report says that in December 2007, the U.S. government accidentally overstated, by 20,000, the number of trained Iraqi police: "The number of Iraqi police trained, 155,248, as reported in March 2008, is a reduction from the December 2007 report of 174,025." The report attributes the decrease to double counting.
Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, requested the IG audit. “This report shows that the Department of Defense keeps moving the goal-posts," he said in a statement, referring to the new estimate for requisite Iraqi troops. "I find it bizarre that each assessment brings an increased estimate of the amount of Iraqi security forces needed. That really is the trigger of when ultimately we can begin bringing troops home, when they have the stability and ability to provide for their own security.”
The Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq, which oversees the training, concurred with most of the findings and recommendations. Still, MNSTC-I, as it is called, said there were some improvements. While only 1/2 to 2/3 of Iraqi troops used to show up for duty, now the average is 70 percent, the Pentagon officials said.
