sisyphusshrugged | swimmingly. Just swimmingly.

The United States (Our Fearless Leader, proprietor) now says that Iraq needs 135,000 police to secure the country - which is fifty thousand (or so - we're not quite sure) more than we're paying now, and apparently quite a few we're paying don't actually show up for work

At a time when Iraqi insurgents are targeting local police officers and recruits for attack, the United States has raised by one-third -- to 135,000 -- the size of the Iraqi police force it says will be needed to help secure the country, according to information the administration has provided to Congress.

The challenges to the United States in training and deploying that many officers are considerable, officials acknowledge. Currently, about 82,051 Iraqi police officers are on the payroll, but only 32,880 have received training under U.S. guidance, according to figures provided by Capt. Steven Alvarez, an Army officer working with the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Of that number, Congress was told last week that only 8,200 had received the eight-week training; the rest got a more basic course for three weeks or less.

...

A senior U.S. official in Iraq said in an interview last week that the new goal for 135,000 officers may not be reached for two more years under the best of circumstances. Officials point, among other things, to a lack of qualified personnel and appropriate training facilities.

More than 750 Iraqi police officers and hundreds more recruits have been killed over the past 10 months, said the senior official, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. At the same time, officials in Baghdad said such attacks on recruits haven't stemmed the flow of willing volunteers.

The Iraqi Police Service is only one of several security forces that Americans are working to train and equip. Officials say this is essential to quell the insurgency, provide security for Iraq's January election and set the stage for U.S. forces to diminish their role in the country.

In addition to the national police force, the security array includes military units such as the Iraqi army, the Iraqi National Guard, the Iraqi Prevention Force and Iraqi Special Operations Forces, and police-type units such as the Department of Border Enforcement and the Facilities Protection Service, whose members guard government buildings.

Estimates of the number of Iraqi police officers have varied, and officials say record-keeping is primitive and chaotic.

"The payrolls are stubby pencil right now," said the U.S. official in Baghdad. He described a system in which a handwritten list of police to be paid is generated in towns and cities across Iraq, approved at a regional level and then delivered to Baghdad, where cash is taken from the Finance Ministry and sent back down the line. "It is all cash right now," he said. The Iraqi Interior Ministry is "determined to set standards and have a database of those who are on the payroll."

...

Anthony H. Cordesman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, released a study Friday showing that the Iraqi Police Service payroll list "includes large numbers of pensions and 'non-performing' police" known not to be serving. He also said the overall police numbers were dropping "in part because of desertions and purging of low-grade personnel."

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has taken charge of all Iraqi security training, has tried to purge the rolls of unqualified or unfit officers even as he works to recruit and train new ones. In June he received $20 million in Iraqi oil money to provide severance pay. At that time, 120,000 people were on the police payroll, but the force was authorized to have only 90,000.

Meanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah says that free elections in Iraq are impossible under current conditions

The Jordanian monarch, who is to meet with President Jacques Chirac before heading to Italy, told Le Figaro that he sees no chances of improvement in the immediate future.

"It seems impossible to organize indisputable elections in the chaos of Iraq today," he said.

"The situation is very, very difficult and in the immediate I don't see any chance of improvement."

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has vowed that elections will take place as scheduled in January.

The king said he was also concerned about creating deeper divisions in the country by holding partial elections and excluding dangerous parts of the country.

Reality is clearly unfit to lead this country. Or something.