Iraqi Unit Readiness

Opinion Journal has an interview with General Petreus, who was responsible for the training of Iraqi units. Here is the key portion...and a special invitation to Chris at TwoBabes to read the whole thing:

"Is Joe Biden convinced?" I ask, referring to the Delaware senator who spent the summer claiming that only a handful of Iraqi battalions were of any use. "You'll have to ask him," replies the general, launching into a survey of the state of play: "There are now nearly 120 army and police combat battalions [about 750 men each] that are 'in the fight.' And 'in the fight' by the transition readiness assessment means they are either Level One, Level Two or Level Three. Now certainly, roughly 80 of those are Level Three, which means 'fighting alongside.' In other words they're fighting literally side by side with our forces. They're not yet capable of independent operations on their own."

But "nearly 40 now are Level Two or better. . . . That's hugely significant because it's at Level Two, at the 'in the lead' category, that means they're doing independent operations. They're not fully independent though, and that's what Level One means. It means they need no Coalition assistance whatsoever."

He offers an example: "In one case, one of the units was reassessed from One to Two. It's doing the same mission, by the way, on Haifa Street in Baghdad. It's just a case of someone being asked, 'Are you sure they're really Level One?' and he said, 'Well maybe they do need a little help from the Coalition in logistics so I guess they properly should be Level Two.' The truth is they actually got a little bit better in that month or two since they were reassessed. . . . They own their own area of operations."

Of course, Slow Joe knows all, right? :)