by TChris

A GAO investigator today told a subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee that the Defense Department's claims about the number of Iraqi soldiers and police officers who are trained and equipped to do their jobs are unreliable.

Mr. Christoff [testified] that the U.S. government's claim that Iraq now has more than 80,000 trained and equipped soldiers and over 60,000 trained and equipped police officers must be understood in the context of the many challenges facing the effort to expand Iraq's security forces. He said those challenges include problems in the Iraqi force structure and leadership ranks, a lack of clarity on the actual readiness of those forces to conduct independent operations and the need to continually re-evaluate security needs as the insurgency continues.

Calling the Defense Department's numbers "Fantasyland" and accusing the department of issuing a "phony report," Committee member Dennis Kucinich compared the Department's assessment to its assurances that Iraq was filled with weapons of mass destruction.