Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Xiahou: Hadn't known that the ISF had managed to field 350k of fairly reliable troops. Where'd you get that?

Again from Brookings.
The State of Iraq: An Update

Quote:
Iraqi Security Forces (in thousands) 0 136 168 266 349

Those numbers are for May of 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 respectively.
Now Seamus , you use the words "fairly reliable" in your post .
So if from the same source up to 45% of those deemed to be competant enough to be deployed for "surge" operations in Baghdad simply don't turn up for work how reliable are the figures of 349,000 ?
Would the less competant units have higher or lower no-show figures ?