More Bad News From Iraq

America's ticket home from Iraq depends on the ability of the Iraqi military to stand on it's own. But today that took another bad news hit. The Pentagon has long claimed that the American military has trained as many as 171,300 Iraqi soldiers. That sound impressive compared to the 136,000 American soldiers in Iraq.

But today the real truth hit the fan. The Pentagon finally admitted that only 2,500 of the claimed 171,300 trained Iraqi soldiers are actually combat capable to stand on their own without American military support. This is a pathetic statistic in that it means that Iraq's own military is similar to the failed "Vietnamization" of the Vietnam War. The South Vietnamese Army could stand up to light insurgent attacks, but complelely failed against North Vietnamese Army regular units. So far the military of Iraq has proven not to have the ability to stand up to light insurgent attacks or more heavy organized efforts. And the situation for Iraq's police force is even worse, where insurgents have taken out complete police stations, that often have little furniture or guns, and fall easily to organized insurgent efforts. And instead of there being pride in the local police, many Iraqi police still wear a mask so insurgents don't know their identity and could target their families. This pretty much tells you who is really in charge in Iraq. The police fear the insurgents.

All of this means that America will not be leaving Iraq very soon. Just like Vietnam, it was easy enough to enter Iraq. But being able to leave is the really hard part. America's ticket out of Iraq is for patriotic Iraqis to step up, show discipline, and to defend their own country. In all other world nations, a local military and police can defend their own country. Why it has not yet happened in Iraq is a mystery. But the longer America stays in Iraq, the more Islamic world terrorists it creates. The sooner Iraq can stand on it's own, the better for a positive outcome to the entire Iraq War mistake.