According to State Department statistics, about 115,000 Iraqis have been trained for the security forces, fewer than half of the 274,000 considered necessary to stabilize the country and permit U.S. forces to withdraw.
The picture may be even more bleak than those numbers suggest because the U.S. government has not provided statistics on casualties and desertions among Iraqi forces, according to O'Hanlon and Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon and State Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"We know that there have been very significant desertions. It's very difficult to quantify," Cordesman said. "It's quite clear that there will not be really significant numbers of properly trained, equipped and experienced forces until mid-2005, and it's likely the numbers will not be available until 2006."
The president also acknowledged that an upsurge in violence, especially suicide bomb attacks, was "having an effect." On Sunday, at least 65 people were killed in car bombings in Najaf and Karbala and in an ambush of Iraqi election workers in Baghdad.
"They're trying to shake the will of the Iraqi people and, frankly, trying to shake the will of the American people. And you know, car bombs that destroy young children or car bombs that indiscriminately bomb in religious sites are effective propaganda tools," Bush said. "But we must meet the objective, which is to help the Iraqis defend themselves and at the same time have a political process to go forward."
Larry Diamond, a Hoover Institution expert on democratic processes who was a consultant to U.S. authorities in Iraq, said the administration should consider postponing the Jan. 30 election to ensure greater participation in Sunni Muslim areas, where the violence has been concentrated. Sunnis, long favored under Saddam Hussein's regime, are a minority and fear losing power to majority Shiites.
"Many, many people are worried that the Jan. 30 election is going to light the fuse to civil war," Diamond said. "If you elect a parliament and freeze a political arrangement in which the Sunnis are essentially locked out and then write a constitution on the basis of that body, what incentive do they have for political action other than unrelenting violence?"
Asked whether Syria was meddling in Iraq, Bush said that the possibility was a serious concern. "Nothing's off the table" in terms of a response, he added.
